Gas, electricity & energy prices

Becerra treats energy as an affordability problem inside the clean-energy transition. His signature move is a freeze on utility rates and home-insurance premiums while the state investigates why they keep climbing, paired with tougher oversight of the investor-owned utilities. On gasoline, he argues the answer is to stabilize fuel supply and distribution so prices stop spiking rather than to scale back the state's climate goals; 'we're never going backwards,' he says of its emission targets, though he would keep the 2045 target flexible if it collides with the cost of living. He has grown friendlier toward oil, saying California still needs companies like Chevron, signaling openness to more Kern County production over imports. He has not detailed how he would bring electricity rates down beyond the freeze.

Hilton makes energy the centerpiece of his affordability pitch, promising $3 gas and electricity bills cut in half, and he blames California's prices on Democratic climate policy. He says he can act largely through regulation rather than the Legislature. His gas plan would repeal or suspend the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, overhaul cap-and-trade, ease the refinery rules he says are closing plants like Valero's Benicia refinery, and reopen in-state oil production through the permitting agency CalGEM. On day one he would remove the chair of the California Air Resources Board and start rolling back climate regulations. For electricity, he would end the state's wind and solar mandates and the renewable credits utilities must buy, and let natural gas, nuclear, and rooftop solar compete without them. He also proposes cutting the gasoline excise tax by about half.